Microcystin-LR toxicity on dominant copepods Eurytemora affinis and Pseudodiaptomus forbesi of the upper San Francisco Estuary

This study investigates the toxicity and post-exposure effects of dissolved microcystin (MC-LR) on the dominant copepods of the upper San Francisco Estuary (SFE), where blooms of the toxic cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa coincide with record low levels in the abundance of pelagic organisms including phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish. The potential negative impact of Microcystis on the copepods Eurytemora affinis and Pseudodiaptomus forbesi has raised concern for further depletion of high quality fish food. Response of copepods to MC-LR (MC) was determined using a 48-h standard static renewal method for acute toxicity testing. Following exposure, a life table test was performed to quantify any post-exposure impacts on survival and reproduction. The 48-h LC-50 and LC-10 values for MC were 1.55 and 0.14 mg/L for E. affinis; and 0.52 and 0.21 mg/L for P. forbesi. Copepod populations recovered once dissolved MC was removed and cultures returned to optimal conditions, suggesting no post-exposure effects of MC on copepod populations. Dissolved microcystin above 0.14 mg/L proved likely to have chronic effects on the survival of copepods in the SFE. Since such high concentrations are unlikely, toxicity from dissolved microcystin is not a direct threat to zooplankton of the SFE, and other mechanisms such as dietary exposure to Microcystis constitute a more severe risk.     

Effect of Messaging Model on the Reliable Data Transfer Latency in a Fog System

Journal of Network and Systems Management - IoT applications have become a pillar for enhancing the quality of life. However, the increasing amount of data generated by IoT devices places pressure...     

Deep long short-term memory networks-based automatic recognition of six different digital modulation types under varying noise conditions

Neural Computing and Applications - In this paper, a new method based on deep learning has been proposed in order to recognize noise-digital modulation signals at varying noise levels...     

Strong Damping‐Like Spin‐Orbit Torque and Tunable Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya Interaction Generated by Low‐Resistivity Pd1−xPtx Alloys

Despite their great promise for providing a pathway for very efficient and fast manipulation of magnetization, spin‐orbit torque (SOT) operations are currently energy inefficient due to a low damping‐like SOT efficiency per unit current bias, and/or the very high resistivity of the spin Hall materials. This work reports an advantageous spin Hall material, Pd_1?xPt_x, which combines a low resistivity with a giant spin Hall effect as evidenced with three independent SOT ferromagnetic detectors. The optimal Pd_0.25Pt_0.75 alloy has a giant internal spin Hall ratio of >0.60 (damping‐like SOT efficiency of ≈0.26 for all three ferromagnets) and a low resistivity of ≈57.5 µΩ cm at a 4 nm thickness. Moreover, it is found that the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), the key ingredient for the manipulation of chiral spin arrangements (e.g., magnetic skyrmions and chiral domain walls), is considerably strong at the Pd_1?xPt_x/Fe_0.6Co_0.2B_0.2 interface when compared to that at Ta/Fe_0.6Co_0.2B_0.2 or W/Fe_0.6Co_0.2B_0.2 interfaces and can be tuned by a factor of 5 through control of the interfacial spin‐orbital coupling via the heavy metal composition. This work establishes a very effective spin current generator that combines a notably high energy efficiency with a very strong and tunable DMI for advanced chiral spintronics and spin torque applications.     

A separable augmented Lagrangian algorithm for optimal structural design

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - We propose an iterative separable augmented Lagrangian algorithm (SALA) for optimal structural design, with SALA being a subset of the alternating...     

Equivalent circuit for capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers to predict anti-resonances

Equivalent circuit models have been long used to evaluate the dynamics of the capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT). An important parameter in the characterization of a CMUT is the anti-resonance frequency, which limits the immersion bandwidth. However, there is no equivalent circuit model that can accurately determine the anti-resonance frequency of a membrane. In this work, we present an improved lumped element parametric model for immersed CMUT. We demonstrate that the proposed equivalent circuit model accurately predicts anti-resonance and higher order mode frequencies, in addition to that of the fundamental mode. The proposed circuit model is in good agreement with device characteristics calculated using the finite element method and experimentally measured data.

     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Tolerance rough set firefly-based quick reduct

In medical information system, there are a lot of features and the relationship among elements is solid. In this way, feature selection of medical datasets gets awesome worry as of late. In this article, tolerance rough set firefly-based quick reduct, is developed and connected to issue of differential finding of diseases. The hybrid intelligent framework intends to exploit the advantages of the fundamental models and, in the meantime, direct their restrictions. Feature selection is procedure for distinguishing ideal feature subset of the original features. A definitive point of feature selection is to build the precision, computational proficiency and adaptability of expectation strategy in machine learning, design acknowledgment and information mining applications. Along these lines, the learning framework gets a brief structure without lessening the prescient precision by utilizing just the chose remarkable features. In this research, a hybridization of two procedures, tolerance rough set and as of late created meta-heuristic enhancement calculation, the firefly algorithm is utilized to choose the conspicuous features of medicinal information to have the capacity to characterize and analyze real sicknesses. The exploratory results exhibited that the proficiency of the proposed system outflanks the current supervised feature selection techniques.

     

Preparation of compatible blends of poly(methyl methacrylate) used in dentistry with a reactive terpolymer containing maleic anhydride and their thermomechanical characterization

This study focuses on the preparation of compatible blends with the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) using a reactive terpolymer maleic anhydride–styrene–vinyl acetate (MA–St–VA). In the first series of experiments, binary blends of the PMMA and the MA–St–VA terpolymer have been prepared in tetrahydrofurane. The PMMA and the MA–St–VA terpolymer formed the compatible blends. The effects on thermomechanical properties of MA–St–VA terpolymer ratio in the blends were studied. The glass transition temperatures (T_g), thermal expansion coefficient (α), and other thermomechanical parameters for the blends have been established by TMA method and the compatibility of two polymers has been evaluated by these TMA parameters. The addition of MA–St–VA terpolymer to PMMA made a plasticizing effect on PMMA. This effect regularly changed with the increasing of the terpolymer in the blends. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 363–367, 2006     

Use of binary and ternary blends in high strength concrete

Combinations of cement additions may provide more benefits for concrete than a single one. In this study, 80 high strength concretes containing several types and amounts of additions were produced. In the first stage, silica fume contents in binary blends that give the highest strengths were determined for different binder contents. In the second stage, a third binder (Class F or Class C fly ash or ground granulated blast furnace slag) was introduced to the concretes already containing Portland cement and silica fume in the amounts found in the first stage. Results indicated that ternary blends almost always made it possible to obtain higher strengths than Portland cement + silica fume binary mixtures provided that the replacement level by the additions was chosen properly. Moreover, the performance of slag in the ternary blends was better than Class F fly ash but worse than Class C fly ash.